


Drowning in my Dreaming

by Calesvol



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 16:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16245809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: Gilgardyn week's day 2 prompt, Ardyn visits Gilgamesh at the Tempering Grounds.





	Drowning in my Dreaming

Warning(s): G, none

* * *

This place was a miserable house of memory. Thousands of years interred in Angelgard had rotted his mind, and he’d almost forgotten it. Bahamut had sealed him there, but there was no mercy, no clemency. All because he rebelled. Because he refused to simply roll over and accept his fate, to be eliminated. Vengeance had stirred in him for so long it replaced his blood, made him something resembling a man. A fossilized remain, all onyx and obsidian for bone and ashes in his blood. Corrupt, and purple as a neon poison.

He remembered this place before the Astral War. Before Bahamut had condemned his only son to a grim fate; one that left him here to test the True King’s Shield. His own descendant.

It had been a beautiful place when Lestallum was barely a scrap of a memory. A beautiful, expansive village that cascaded down the mountains like water. When Ca-dimirra had been the kingdom before, and Izdubar its king. He wondered if Bahamut ever regretted usurping his own son from the throne. A man so heartachingly noble that even now, it stirred with memory. What a word, memory. He wished he could hate them, but they were all he had left.

The Tempering Grounds were old, very old. Why did it still feel so achingly new, so dominantly wrong? This was not where Gilgamesh belonged. No, he was so filled with sunlight that Ardyn had thought him a nameless god of the sun. Those days; those tawny, good days that seemed so, so sweet. Even through the bitterness, he wished he could return. Was that why he was here? To find the sole light in his heart and see if he’d snuffed himself out?

Spirits retreated from him. They knew who he was, what a terror he’d been. They whispered of his returned, shied from the demon dogs that hounded his very heels, glowing and braying savagely. But, Ardyn did not care for them. They weren’t the ghosts his heart agonized to see.

The sunset was still beautiful from here, captured in the long behemoths of crystal ever frozen from the Astral Shard. But, distorted. Not so different from himself, was it? He’d been beautiful once. So full of promise that none would believe the corruption that would befall him.

This place remembered him, too. Despite being the first time he’d ever been there. Not since he’d sided with Ifrit and they’d rained their wroth upon the heavens. He could still taste the heat and sulfur of the meteor as it fell to Eos, reflected in his eyes in wonder and rage. Despite how he’d smiled his Cheshire smile, the last time he’d ever shine so brightly.

“I thought I might find you here, my old friend.”

He sounds duplicitous, like enticing one to sell their soul to him, for he was bedeviled and always had been. Even the Frostbearer had tried to free her lover from his snares and failed for it. Ardyn wished he could remain hard and devilish. He seated himself on a smooth buttress, crossing his ankle on his knee, leaning back against a gentle incline of craggy stone. Fedora unseated from his crown, Gilgamesh would be able to see the emotion present in his eyes.

No, he couldn’t be a devil. Even smirking, he couldn’t be so for the man he loved more than life itself.

Gilgamesh watched him with the same heartbroken stare Ardyn wore, had for centuries. The same they matched eons ago when he’d been strung up in darkness and left to die in the sunlight, bare for the demons to scream their wretched murder. And to think, he’d loved it so dearly once. Just as he’d loved the gods and his brother.

“Why are you here?” Izdubar asked in a low disbelief, still so far away. Was his former Shield truly so terrified of him? Oh, he was missing an arm?

Ardyn smiled mirthlessly. He didn’t know how to be cunning around Gilgamesh. Just as his eyes lost all malevolence. Uncrossing his ankle, the former king rested his elbows atop his kneecaps. Gods, it hurt. Of all the things that wretchedly stung him, why did it have to be this? “Can’t an old friend say hello?” he asked with an ambiguous humor, but he wasn’t smiling. “…I wanted you to stop me, Gil. I had hoped you might came at me raging for everything I’ve done to the Caelums, to the earth, and will do.”

It was sullen as a funerary shroud, the way he spoke. Heavy maroon bangs came over his eyes, making it difficult to see aught else but the wan stretch of his lips. He felt so old. So, so old. How tired he was of this life.

Gilgamesh took a step closer, though something iron planted his feet just strides before they might close in. “…The prophecy is underway. I have tested the Chosen’s Shield, and he has proven worthy. They sojourn ahead to fulfill it with the Oracle in Altissia, as it has been ordained,” Gilgamesh said slowly, automatically. Mechanical as the armor he wore.

Ardyn was up like a shot, tears burning in his eyes. “Enough of the fucking riddles!” he snarled acidly, hands balling into blanched fists. “Strike me down, Gil! Exactly as your father would’ve fucking wanted!” Sagging to his knees, Gods damn him! He couldn’t stay composed, let alone angry! No, his heart hurt too much, damn him!

“I can’t.” Gold eyes flickered to him with so much damn vulnerability, he felt like shaking. “You can’t ask me to.” Izdubar sounded so pained that it tore into him. Agony. So much _damn_ agony! “Please—”

His fists unclenched. “ _Stop_. You can’t— You can’t act as though I’m someone still worth saving, Gil.” His smile was bitter and watery, eyes shining. No one would ever see him like this again. Not after the end.

Nothing more was said when he felt a strong arm envelop him, Ardyn’s immediately circling around his former Shield’s waist and clinging to him like an anchor.

“I have fulfilled my duty. All I wish is for peace, my King. With you.”

They remained quiet for what felt like the longest of times. “With me?” Ardyn repeated after the longest of pauses. “Forever, Gil?” Whatever tears had started, no stopped. Instead, ink bled from miasma-black sclera, framing those eyes of inhuman gold. The last of the sunset dropped behind the horizon and they were blanketed in shadow save for the preternatural light of the Tempering Grounds.

“Forever,” Gilgamesh rasped, armor trembling as a nebulous darkness entered him, filled his veins. His shoulders shook, but he didn’t fight it. Instead, the Shield sank to his knees and clung to Ardyn while the Starscourge pooled in his veins, infecting him, making him one with his king.

“I love you, Gil.”

Voice becoming distorted, in a raspy growl did Gilgamesh utter, “As do I, my king.”


End file.
